Alot of people seem to be having problems with this app with icons, well for me I don't use icons anyways,
and even in this article I assume if you do try it, that you don't use icons, for me its just more clean anyways.

You can actually use a media player like mplayer to play a video as the background if you like with xwinwrap app, however for this example I keep it simple by using the matrix screen saver found in most linux distros, especially debian and debian based ones.

However, I ran into some problems and I tried several combinations of the options, I would get the whole screen with the animation eating up all my windows/apps/panels even, I found a solution that works, but as I said earlier, I do not use nor have tested it with icons, try the following command if it works out for you:

*NOTES:
- I suggest using ALT+F2 and inputting the command/s there, instead of on console prompt, however if you do use a console append an "&" w/o the quotes a the end with a space separating it from the rest, this will indicate to run it on the background so that you wont kill the program by terminating console when you do.
ex:

Edit /etc/default/grub to boot LinuxMint Debian into console mode, You shouldn't just sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.cfg and put "text" there, there's a big warning against it at the top of the file.

The right way is to:

$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

And add "text" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.
So if it looked like:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

...you have to change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet text"

update grub

$ sudo update-grub

And reboot.

This method is preferred over disabling a service, since it's what it should be: editing one line in a configuration file. The same process can be repeated, and, if you want, startx will bring you to the user graphical interface while in text mode.

To return to normal, of course, just edit the file again and update-grub.

*NOTES:

- The $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in
- Doesn't seem to work in Vanilla Debian Sid (Unstable) do not use this unless you want to never boot in X/GUI, if you ever did do this, you can fix it by changing the grub defaults in CLI, then update-grub and restart.

*NOTES:
- Where input is the source file and output the outcome file.
- The $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- Many file formats are supported, for more see $ man ffmpeg

*NOTES:
- Where input is the source file and output the outcome file.
- The $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- Using x264 option than xvid will make it the better compressed file, approx 10-30% smaller, this is my preferred conversion of the two.

Open a terminal and issue the command below to start recording a video screencast of your desktop -

$ ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wxga -r 25 -i :0.0 -sameq /tmp/output.mpg

press CTRL-C to exit.

*NOTES:
- Where output is the outcome file.
- The $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- You can name your file and folder to where the video will be saved whatever you like, in this tutorial I just use /tmp and output.mpg as the destination directory and outcome file name.

Issue the cat command to string together or concatenate the binary .avi files:

$ cat foo1.avi foo2.avi foo3.avi > output.avi

(this will string all binary .avi files first but the sync of audio and video might likely be broken, so follow the next instructions below to fix it.)

after issuing the cat command and getting the final file output from it, issue the following meconder command from the mplayer package:

$ mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy input.avi -o output.avi

*NOTES:
- Where input is the source file and output the outcome file.
- the $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- The order you set the files to be joined or merged from left to right will be the sequence it will playback as one video file.
- Though for me avimerge is my preferred tool for this task.
- If the header file is broken in the final .avi use the avifix command part of the transcode package, as such:

$ avifix -i input.avi

/or

$ avifix -i input.avi -f 30,1

(this changes the header of the file input.avi and sets the frame rate to 30 fps.)

Sometimes when using a laptop the touchpad is too sensitive for typing that simply typing fast causes misstypes due to vibrations because of it, or you can be hitting it by accident, or that you dont need the touchpad as your using a mouse instead, to disable the touchpad issue command -

$ sudo /sbin/modprobe -r psmouse

/or

$ /sbin/modprobe -r psmouse

/or

# modprobe -r psmouse

to re-enable the touchpad again issue command -

$ sudo /sbin/modprobe psmouse

/or

# /sbin/modprobe psmouse

/or

# modprobe psmouse

2.) Disable Touchpad with SYNCLIENT

- Using synclient utility, you can disable the laptop touchpad.

Disable touchpad, issue the command below:

$ synclient TouchpadOff=1

For enabling touchpad, you need to set value to 0 and run this command in terminal as in below.

$ synclient TouchpadOff=0

- You can also put it in a startup bash script or config script so that it disables the touchpad on startup

*NOTES:
- the $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- the # sign at the start of the command is to signify the Root user's terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.

Convert Image/Picture files within current Directory to .MPG video in Linux with FFMPEG:

$ ffmpeg -r 10 -b 1800 -i %03d.jpg output.mp4

*NOTES:
- Where output is the outcome file.
- The $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- For this to work the files must start with 001.jpg and count from there in order, be careful not to miss a sequence number for example 001.jpg 002.jpg 003.jpg 005.jpg missing 004.jpg wont count the rest after, 005.jpg and if there are more after wont be added.

*NOTES:
- Where input is the source file and output the outcome file.
- the $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.

- ffmpeg can make DVD video files using -target option,
the target can be any of the following "vcd", "svcd", "dvd", "dv", "pal-vcd", "ntsc-vcd", "ntsc-dvd", "ntsc-svcd in the example above ntsc-dvd is used

*NOTES:
- where input.avi is the avi file you want to convert and output.mp4 your desired mp4 file name.
- the $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.

NOTES:
- where input is the flash file you want to extract the audio from, and nodame_theme.mp3 the mp3 output file you want.
- the $ sign at the start of the command is to signify the terminal's prompt, no need to type this in.
- rename nodame_theme.mp3 to the title you want after executing the command above.

How to Install Programs from SlackBuilds.org to your Slackware Linux System:

While SlackBuilds.org provides their own HOWTO version, I try to write one for them, in another way, a more detailed though still in pedagogical order for newbies, just incase their article doesn't find your fancy. This is written for People new to Slackware or newbies to Linux, but have successfully installed a slackware system, which isn't all that hard to begin with especially in the more later versions like 12.x or 13.x , if the text install didn't scare you off from installing Slackware then this tutorial shouldn't do much further scaring as well then.

* All commands to be typed in the terminal are indicated as underlined text. *

My Foolish Assumptions:

- I assume you know how to follow instructions, read and comprehend english.

- That you know what the terminal console is and can navigate and input basic commands. If you installed Slackware Linux, and can start a desktop environment such as KDE4, XFCE, LXDE and others on Slackware or better yet, just fully use the CLI, you should have some form of these basics.

- You have your stock Slackware System up and running and an internet connection, or one in a Virtual Machine with an internet connection.

- You have root priviledges to your system.

- I assume you have either a 32 bit or 64 bit PC system. to find out what system you have, at the terminal type in - uname -m , the output is the one you will you use later on, for example if you got the 64 bit system it will say = x86_64

- You can use both the GUI for the Graphical and the CLI, or even better just the CLI. In this tutorial you can do use a mix of GUI and CLI, but not just fully GUI but this tutorial is entirely possible to use for CLI only, it's actually preferred, and the more you use slackware and Linux or Unix type systems the more you will use the terminal so why not get used to it.

- Some experience with an easy to use hand holding Linux Distribution (like Ubuntu, Mandriva, Mageia, etc-etc.) or other OS with some minimal CLI experience, will really help you out.

The Basics in 11 steps:

(Good luck and do not be afraid, it really isn't that hard!)

1. Go to SlackBuilds.org website and either click the Repositories button and navigate through there to the program you want to install or type in the program your looking for in the search bar provided in slackbuilds, make sure to use the package made for the version for your system the default is usually the latest version at the time of this writing it was 13.37.

2. As an example I will use the program unrar, to keep things simple as it doesn't need any other packages or dependencies as it is normally called in linux terms to install before it. So go to the unrar program page of SlackBuilds.org.

3. In this page the following data will show, due to future changes the page could be different or totally changed however the slackbuilds.org have a set of rules that submitters for programs for slackbuilds follow, just pay attention to basics and you can easily adapt to changes and other variations. As of this writing the following data is found on the said unrar program in slackbuilds.

For this example I will use the needed live links so you may experiment from this tutorial.

SlackBuilds Repository

13.37 >
System >
unrar (4.0.7)

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. Unrar is an opensource subset
of RAR from rarlab that can uncompress RAR images.

- There are 2 live links here, the 2 live links could change in the future and end up broken, but the tutorial will still be adequate enough to show how to install.

- You should read whatever information each package contains, like the README, slack-desc, info, etc-etc just incase or other such info however for the most part, what I show you here are the most needed fundamental/s.

- FYI SlackBuilds website doesn't actually keep the binaries or source codes in their servers as a policy, so all links are external to slackbuilds.org, just the slackbuild scipts are hosted by them.

4. Anyways, First create a directory to hold the SlackBuild scripts, such as SlackBuilds for a directory..., great!, type in or paste the following command in your terminal - mkdir SlackBuilds

- You can change the name of the directory to whatever you like, but for this tutorial I use SlackBuilds for the name of that directory. After creating the directory, navigate into it, using the cd command - cd SlackBuilds

5. So then you need to download the source download,you can either do that by clicking the link unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz(41b0a9bca945b4ae2608421afd8f606e) by your browser or use copy link with your mouse, and paste it to your downloader, I prefer to use the terminal, so click your terminal program,
at the prompt(usually an $ for a normal user and a # for the root user)
type wget then click the space button on your keyboard and paste the url in or type it in, press enter

Example: - $ wget http://www.rarlab.com/rar/unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz

Wait for it to finish downloading, or simultaneously Download the SlackBuild

- From the terminal, Type $ tar -zxvf unrar.tar.gzto extract the file to the current directory. Now you have a new directory called unrar.

- You can do this in your GUI by usually right clicking your mouse button the package.tar.gz and choosing the option extract here.

7. Move the unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz inside the new unrar directory, by terminal -

$ mv unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz unrar/

- By Graphical, click or highlight the unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz file and drag it into the unrar directory or do a copy and paste into or a cut and paste into the directory.

8. Once the unrarsrc-4.0.7.tar.gz is inside the unrar directory, you should read the text files that it comes with, but more importantly, you need to find the SlackBuild script it will be named like this unrar.SlackBuild (or generically file.SlackBuild), from there make it executable with this command if it isn't already to play it safe just issue the command like so -

$ chmod +x unrar.SlackBuild

9. Open the unrar.SlackBuild with your chosen editor, Look for an ARCH text at the top of the file after all the comments - in this example it will be this:

- Do replace the i486 value with x86_64 if your system is a 64 bit otherwise it is likely a 32 bit and you need not change the value, as stated at the start of this tutorial to find out what your system is at the terminal type in : uname -m
the value to print out is your system. And FYI an i386, i486, i686 are all 32 bit systems and are not x86_64 or 64 bit systems.

- And make sure also that the package source download version you have is the same as the one mentioned in the SlackBuild script in this example it is this:

example:

PRGNAM=unrar
VERSION=4.0.7
BUILD=${BUILD:-1}
TAG=${TAG:-_SBo}

- And as in this SlackBuild script and our package both at version 4.0.7 meaning they are the same, and that means that you need not change anything in this file. If however the version we had was newer for the source package downloaded say 4.0.9, you must edit the VERSION value and change it to VERSION=4.0.9 in the script, save and exit the editor program.

example for 4.0.9:

PRGNAM=unrar
VERSION=4.0.9
BUILD=${BUILD:-1}
TAG=${TAG:-_SBo}

10. Now it's time to build the program, from the command line, change into root, by typing in the terminal, and yes the space and the dash, matter : su -

- And press enter, and input your root password and then enter again.

- If you were successful you should now have a # on your prompt instead of the typical $ prompt for normal/non-root users.

- From there issue the command, the dot slash is important

$ ./unrar.SlackBuild

- If all things went well it should start building the package and you will see tons of cryptic stuff roll down your terminal. And if everything is good and done for after the wait to build the package, it will end without error.

11. After the build process, the terminal console will indicate that your file has been built and can be found in the /tmp directory as default where slackbuild scripts from slackbuilds usually puts them. You can install directly from the same directory your in, by issuing the command as root -

installpkg /tmp/unrar.tgz

- It should then start to install it, if all goes well it will install without a hitch.

- And there you have it, you have successfully installed a program from the slackbuilds website, Congratulations.

* Note 1: If your packages chosen from slackbuilds needs dependencies, you must build and install those dependencies in the order mentioned, the information will be shown in the programs pages in slackbuilds, also if you do not meet this criteria properly you wont be able to install anyways.

* Note 2: Tip - After properly building the program before installing or after, save the binary file from the /tmp directory either by GUI or CLI, thats up to you, this way you will have a program already built as a backup and you can install whenever on your system/s, should you need to, saving time, the effort and and power, Hey, compiles task the processor which eats power.

* Note 3: The Binary Packages/Programs you can install in slackware with the package manager end with .tgz or .txz file extensions. The latter one has a much better compression algorithm and saves more space than .tgz, this could matter when your building and saving backups of your built files, regarding saving space. However installing by .tgz is faster, but by modern hardware it shouldn't matter so much. The .tgz has been the more common one as it's been the default for awhile, .txz was introduced to later versions of slackware, I think 13.0, so installing .tgz wont work out of the box for older slackware versions and their package manager.

* Note 4: Below shows the complete unrar.SlackBuild file used in this example for the sake of brevity:

#!/bin/sh

# Slackware build script for unrar

# Copyright 2006 Halim Issa <yallaone@gmail.com>
# All rights reserved.
#
# Redistribution and use of this script, with or without modification, is
# permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
#
# 1. Redistributions of this script must retain the above copyright
# notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
#
# THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ''AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
# WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
# MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO
# EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
# SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
# PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
# OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
# WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
# OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
# ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

* Note 5: Sometimes the Source Downloads are actually already pre-built compiled packages that may just need some re-packaging, and may come with other files, not to worry, just download the program's slackbuild, extract the directory and put in the extra files inside, do the same steps, edit the needed information such as ARCH and VERSION in the SlackBuild Script. And generically it should be done. Sometimes the binary can be .deb or .rpm files these are actually linux binaries for easy installs for certain distributions .deb for debian and maybe other debian based distributions and .rpm for RHEL/Centos/SL distributions and clones or derivatives. You may even come across src deb and src rpm which are typically source files for those platforms with some extra configs.

* Note 6: Make sure to make the slackbuild script executable with the chmod +x file.SlackBuild command, failure to make the file executable will make hinder you from building the program/s.

* Note 7: Tip - Learn some Bourne or Bash shell scripting so you can script Linux and understand the slackbuild scripts if not create your very own slackbuild scripts and submit to the slackbuilds.org site to contribute to the community. These 2 shell scripting languages are the Norm in Linux, and bourne for even other *nix systems. Bash is based on Bourne and extends it's features but bash is at the very basic level compatible to the Bourne shell. No matter what it will be useful to you, and it's not at all that hard. You can also make this a stepping stone to learning other scripting languages be it shell or general programming interpreted types or even the full blown compiler/VM byte compiled type languages.

* Note 8: To avoid problems, It's preferred to keep and use one Terminal window only for this tutorial, to avoid confusion and whatever hassle or getting lost for newbie/s.

* Note 9: Some packages/programs do need dependencies some do not and even then there are some which ask if you want to include even other optional dependencies.

* Note 12: By Default the $ is a prompt for normal non-root users and the # is a prompt usually used for root users.

********* Should this help anyone at all, it is my pleasure to, and I will try to refine, edit and update this article whenever I can,

********* However you are solely responsible for your actions and what you do to your system/s, and that means, I cannot be held liable for anything you do wrong at all to any or all of your system/s, well I just had to add that disclaimer. :-P

********* Should you need extra help in slackware the best place to go to is the slackware subforums in Linuxquestions.org, which effectively is the official slackware forums anyways.

2.) Read the SlackBook 2.0 at SlackBook, somewhat dated but it is free. There's been a project for a version 3.0 but as of this date that is still nothing but a dream. There is also the SlackWiki at slackwiki.com and Slack-Docs at docs.slackware.com and highly recommended Alien's SlackBook at alien.slackbook.org.

6.) Go check the SlackBuilds website at SlackBuilds.org, and their HOWTO use their website and slack build scripts at HOWTO at SlackBuilds.org. It's the best place to look for 3rd party software for Slackware.

7.) Suggest to check the sbopkg tool to easily use the slackbuilds.org site, it's at Sbopkg.

8.) Suggest to check the slackpkg+ tool to easily update 3rd party repos for slackware packages at Slackpkg+ (actually its more of a plugin that extends the function of slackpkg tool mentioned above at number 4).

9.) Go register at the LinuxQuestions (LQ) forum, its a very good forum for all Linux and other unix stuff, and has many sub-forums that cater to specific types of Linux Distributions, but not only does it cater to Slackware it is also the offically sanctioned forums for Slackware Linux.

This
sets up your system as “multilib enabled.” Next you need to download,
and install the compat32 packages that allow 32 bit applications to run
on your system. The second part is longer but the procedure is basically
the same, issue the command.

From the slackware64-compat32/, Go into each subdirectory with cd command (example: $ cd a-compat32, to go into the a-compat32/ subdirectory), input cd .. to
go back to the previous directory and then change into the next
subdirectory, and then issue the command below within each subdirectory:

BUT, if you’re building a SlackBuild though please read the following below:

* Compiling 32-bit programs
In
case you need to compile a 32-bit program (wine and grub are two
examples of open source programs that are 32-bit only) you first
configure your shell environment by running the command:

$ ./etc/profile.d/32dev.sh

Note
the 'dot' in front of the filename - that is actually part of the
commandline! Running this command changes or creates several environment
variables. The effect of this is, that 32-bit versions of binaries are
preferred over 64bit binaries when you compile source code - you will be
running a 32bit compilation. The effect will last until you logout from
your shell.

In this changed environment, you will be able
to use standard SlackBuilds to build 32-bit packages for Slackware64.
There are two things to keep in mind:

You will have to define the ARCH variable as 'x86_64' even though you are compiling a 32-bit program!
This is related to the triplet of
“$ARCH-slackware-linux” which is normally used in the “configure”
command. Also, try setting the ARCH to for instance “i486” and you will
see that the CFLAGS definition for that architecture will result in gcc errors like ”compiler can not create executables”. This is related to the design of a SlackBuild script. Rather than editing the script and change/remove CFLAGS definitions, you can set the ARCH to “x86_64” and save yourself some time. The real work is being done by the 32dev.sh script.

You
will have to edit the SlackBuild if it wants to use 'lib64/'
directories for “$ARCH = x86_64”. You have to force it to use 'lib/'
directories instead. Usually, this is accomplished by finding a
definition like:

*Note1: When installing proprietary NVIDIA drivers the stock 64 bit drivers will haveboth 32 and 64 bit drivers unless otherwise mentioned, by making the system multilib enabled ahead,you can install both versions drivers and it will work, if nvidia drivers were installed first with only 64 bit before enabling multilib, you must rebuild/reinstall the proprietary nvidia drivers to do so.

*Note2: Of course needless to say, but for brevity, Root priviledges are needed for these instructions to work.

#
# Explanatioon of script:
#
# /usr/bin/find that command
# /tmp looks in that directory
# -1mindepth 1 to process all files except the command line arguments
# -maxdepth 1 descending one level below the command line arguments
# -print0 and printing the full file names followed by a null characters
# | then all the output is redirected
# xargs to the command building and executing commands
# -0r which looks for the arguments separated by null characters
# /bin/rm and runs the command removing files and directories
# -fr by force and recursively
#
# See: man find; man xargs; man rm
#

or

/usr/bin/find /tmp -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec /bin/rm -rf {} +;

This script will be executed each time you'll shut down Slackware, name this file "rc.local_shutdown" and put it in the # "/etc/rc.d/" directory.

How to repackage a .txz to a .tgz Slackware Installable Package

this
example repackages .txz to .tgz (But does nothing else, which means if
the txz was a legal slackware linux package, converting it to tgz
will make the tgz version just like the txz version installable with installpkg tool)

*NOTE:
Slackware packages typically end with file extensions .tgz and .txz(txz
starting version 13) for installation with installpkg tool.

*NOTE:
The only difference with the tgz from the txz, is the compression used,
the tgz is just a typically tarball compressed with gz while the
txz is a tarball that uses LZMA compression, which greatly compresses the file size of the txz compared to the tgz.

*NOTE:
One common reason to do this conversion is if one is using a slackware
version prior to version 13, but the user/admin wants to use new
packages compressed into txz.

*NOTE:
It's faster to install a tgz file compared to txz file, since the tgz
extracts and installs faster and needs less RAM and resources, than
the txz file type, however for the most part this speed comparison is
negligible with most packages and with modern hardware, but it could
still be an
issue to keep in mind depending on how many packages
to install and how big they are, and if there is a time limit schedule
to meet, in theory.

after that your firefox and thunderbird will be version 8.x when you click the icons or start by termina.

(tested working on Slackware13.37 x86_64 GNU Linux)

Note1: It is possible to use other versions for this, just edit the links/urls/commands to accomodate the proper version, for lower or higher available binary packages from Mozilla.org corresponing project urls for firefox and thunderbird website.

In
the past, most Slackware users built their packages from source, after
downloading them from the package maintainers’ websites, rather than using pre-built/pre-compiled binary packages.

Nowadays while it is still being done more and more people use buildscripts to compile and install Slackware Packages, the most known buildscript repository is the SlackBuilds.org website. And it seems to be the preferred way, Heck I prefer it. However there is still need or use for doing it the classic build from source procedure, and this is what this article is about.

To build from
source, you open up the tarball and read the provided instructions
(particularly the README and INSTALL files).

Download the source package

Extract the source package via command line - $ tar xvvf foo.tar.bz2

Change into the extracted directory via commandline - $ cd foo

Read any readme or text or instructional files included.

$ ./configure –help

$ ./configure plus any appropriate options from the last step

$ make

as root - # make install

# make clean

Get out of the current directory back to where you started - $ cd ..

Move the package directory to a different directory so you may easily uninstall it nex time as mentioned below as root - # mv foo /usr/local/src

When you want to uninstall it, you do the following:

cd /usr/local/src/foo

as root - # make uninstall

* Note1: To install binary packages read about pkgtool and its suite of tools
* Note2: To Install from source easier/quicker use the tool src2pkg
*
Note3: Nowadays most people use SlackBuilds or Build Scripts to
automate the build/compile and install of slackware packages, However
there is still use and worth knowing how to do it the classic way to
build/compile and install the package from source, common place to get
from is http://www.slackbuilds.org.
* Note4: Check the tool sbopkg, its a commandline tool to help install packages from the slackbuilds.org website.
*
Note5: Also there is a tool called slapt-get its a commandline tool
that mimicks apt-get package manager from debian for slackware, handles
dependency management, software could be limited depending on
servers/repos online, however the SalixOS distro based on Slackware
Linux uses this package manager and its packages supposed to be
compatible to slackware provided the versions are the same as SalixOS
releases are based on releases of slackware (example: salixOS version
13.37 is based from the orginal Slackware 13.37, so use packages made
for versions of the same number scheme), by using the repos/servers of
SalixOS one can have more software available via slapt-get for slackware
if one chooses to use slapt-get for their slackware system/s.
*
Note6: Another Package manager that hadles dependency management for
slackware is emerde, a tool that mimicks the portage package manager of
Gentoo Linux, from the website of http://emerde.freaknet.org/
* Note7: Another way to repackage and install a .rpm binary to slackware tgz package, is to use the rpm2tgz tool.
* Note8: Another way to repackage and install a .deb binary to slackware tgz package, is to use deb2tgz tool.
* Note9: Check the tool called Checkinstall - Installs a compiled binary package from the program's source directory, it's similar to src2pkg.
*
Note10: Slackware Linux Package manager is pkgtool suite, but it doesn't
feature dependency management its left to the user/admin to handle that
manually, this is the slackware way, and its meant as a feature to not
have that automatic dependency management, while there are
package managers that do dependecy management automatically, they are
not preferred by real slackware users nor are they offically sanctioned
by the author/creator of slackware, as it completely devoids a major part of the
KISS philosophy of slackware, simplicity in design not in ease for newbie use.

Originally posted in previous other defunct Blog/s: (http://zeroincrement.wordpress.com)

March 16, 2009

I was bored and decided to liven up my for along time dead wordpress blog, well…, and then decided to make this little howto.

This is for people who are looking to install Arch Linux in their
HP 2133 Mini-Notes and get the wifi running if they happen to have the
BCM4312 cards.I just made this out of a whim but I tried to restructure it
somewhat, anyways it ain’t done great so don’t complain eheheh. If this
helps anyone though despite my poor authoring skills, then its all
good!

Anyways on with the show…

Arch Linux on HP 2133 Mini-Note how to install broadcom-wl wifi drivers from AUR and get it working , without NDIS wrapper:

Search for the latest broadcom-wl PKGBUILD in the AUR (this example
was done with broadcom-wl 5.10.79.10-1 version on 2.6.28 linux kernel)
Download the tarball.

Then extract the contents and navigate into the folder where the files just extracted into, you can extract via terminal(tar xzf foo , where foo is a placeholder for the filename to be untarred) or by extracting within the GUI.
At the terminal, you should be in the folder where files extracted
too, and should see a PKGBUILD file, then type and enter this command in
terminal – makepkg
After all the gibberish you will see done in the terminal and
everything is ok without errors, Locate the new wl.ko file, (ex: this
was located in
~/broadcom-wl/pkg/lib/modules/2.6.28-ARCH/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/wl.ko)

Navigate to folder where the wl.ko file is and in the terminal issue the command – insmod /this-is-the-PATH-to-file/wl.ko
Now load the module by issuing the command – modprobe wl
command, or to load the broadcom-wl driver automatically during
startup, copy or move the module to your module directory then edit the
/etc/rc.conf file with your preferred text editor (ex: # vim /etc/rc.conf
, and then locate MODULES array and add wl to the list, save and exit,
on next reboot the the driver would load automatically without the need
to load manually)

* Note the ieee80211_crypt_tkip should be loaded or added into the MODULES array as well.

* Put “ieee80211_crypt_tkip” and “wl” at the BEFORE b44 (if you have it) position in MODULES= in /etc/rc.conf

* Don’t forget to blacklist b43, by prefixing it with the ” ! ” symbol in the modules array.

* Your wireless card will be eth0 and your ethernet card will be eth1

* To check if the wl and ieee80211 modules are loaded issue the command via terminal – lsmod , and look for the modules that look like or seem similar to wl and ieee80211, if they are listed then they are loaded.

* To check if your wifi is detected and too see which accesspoints are detected issue the command via terminal – iwconfig

*A NOTE to the occassional clueless wandering person who by chance
got here and doesnt know much about the GNU/Linux Operating System, this
ain’t the place for you no offense intended there, If you don’t know
Arch Linux or even Linux for that matter go google it, its too long to
explain here,

Anyways for the sake of some brevity on Arch Linux -

Arch Linux (or Arch) is a Linux Distribution intended to be lightweight and simple. The
design approach of the development team focuses on “simplicity”,
elegance, code correctness and minimalism. “Simplicity”, according to
Arch, is defined as “…without unnecessary additions, modifications, or
complications..” and is defined from a developer standpoint, rather than
a user standpoint. –from wikipedia.
When we talk about simplicity in Arch Linux its about DESIGN not in
ease of use, if you somehow wandered on here and are quite lost in the
terms of linux choice of distributions topics about LKM, compile,
makefiles, kernel, GNU, etc-etc and such, but want to learn and maybe
try out Linux go check out Mandriva, PClinuxOS, Freespire, and the all
to famous easy to use Ubuntu for a good beginner beginner somewhat hand
holding Linux Distros, (‘somewhat’ because it still ain’t like a
windows system its still linux) when we say simple in these distros they
mean ease of use, unlike the simple in Arch Linux.

Previous comments:

dtrane33 Says:

December 15, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Hello, I have downloaded the .tar.gz files, and have extracted them to the desktop, but I cannot find a PKGBUILD file anywhere. The only folders I see are “src”, “lib”, and a file “Makefile”. Any additional help would be great. Thank you.

zeroincrement Says:

December 16, 2009 at 5:23 am

Hey there dtrane33, if you look to the last 4 links I mentioned above, under “driver links”, pick out the last link, which is this link -> http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=19514 , you’ll be presented with the package details and you can either get the whole package or choose the file or just the PKGBUILD itself.

If that somehow confuses you, then just go directly to this link – http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broadcom-wl/broadcom-wl.tar.gz, save the broadcom-wl.tar.gz file and extract it you’ll have 3 files 1 being the PKGBUILD file your looking for, in its directory as well.

Gaming on the HP 2133 Mininote

Originally posted in previous other defunct Blog/s: (http://zeroincrement.wordpress.com)

December 8, 2009 at 3:54 pm

List of Games I’ve Tried on my HP 2133 Mininote:

Age of Empires II & Expansion – Runs great on highest settings even.

Starcraft - Runs fast and great even with expansions of Broodwar and the Gundam pack.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
(v.124c) – Runs best at lowest graphic settings. (FYI: Blizzard
officially released and provides for free download no-cd patches at
their website for this game and Frozen Throne, this goes well for
laptops and netbooks like 2133 that doesn’t come with built-in internal
CD/DVD ROM drive.) Versions tried running on v.1.02, v.1.24b and
v.1.24c, theres a problem with the v.1.24b patch update with not working
at “Chapter Six: The Culling” Human Campaign Map, that got fixed with
the v.1.24c, other than the version 1.24b, the other 2 versions run fine
so far.

Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Expansion (v.1.24c) – Runs exactly the same as Reign of Chaos
standalone, running best at the same lowest graphic settings, Blizzard
also has updated no-cd patch for Frozen Throne.

Star Wars Republic Commando
– Lowest Settings, playable but some parts can get choppy especially
when you have to kill alot of flying winged aliens. (Possibly better
performance with a 1.6 GHz and ofcourse later models).

Gothic II - Lowest
Settings, somewhat playable if you have “great patience”, with lowest
settings, but when theres alot of Orcs or enemies it can really slow
down almost to a grinding halt, (maybe it has better performance with
1.6GHz) You can run higher options even the “zhighqualityrenderer” but
its going to run really slow, but the point is it will run, but it
surely doesnt count as one of the games that excel on HP 2133.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines – Another game that barely runs just like Gothic II, if not worst, staggeringly slow.

Most any Graphic Novel Games works good, like graphic novel hentai エロゲー/erogē games. Even
if these kinds of games minimum system requirements outspecs an HP 2133
with a 1.2GHz processor needing for example a CPU with 1.6Ghz,it will
run smooth. Err, tried and tested it on Japanese Eroge games Zyx’s V.Roster game and Err, Bible Black, runs good.

Knights of Honor – Runs
well, it can however slowdown abit if you load a saved game which had a
huge army and vast lands occupied already, some parts of the game can
slow down as well, but still playable. For Example starting a campaign
with a 1 province faction, and saving that campaign and loading it when
you already have say 10 provinces and heavily garrisoned castles with
several marshal knights leading armies.

GuildWars on Windows XP Pro with SP3
– Runs better than on Vista, and is a lesser burden for the cpu and RAM
Hogging than GW on Vista which I’ve tried first as my mininote came
pre-loaded with Vista, For the curious yes it runs well with all
Campaigns – Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and even Eye of the North.
The faster your internet the smoother your gameplay with GW.

GuildWars on Windows Vista – Runs ok, better on windows XP though.

Macross VOXP – Excellent on
the HP 2133, however the english language version mod loads quite
noticeably slower especially a bit more before mission sorties, however
gameplay doesnt seem much affected except on seldom occassions it gets
choppy once in awhile not enough to annoy though, but the HDD space
occupies more definitely, Vanilla Japanese version runs really well even
on just 1.2 GHz HP 2133 model, suggested to keep using the vanilla
japanese version without mods to keep the game load speed as fast as
possible, use applocale or install Asian Japanese language Support to
your windows system if you dont already have it, when using the vanilla
Japanese game, to rid yourself of wierd text characters and boxes, on a
side note there is also a spanish language mod available, if anyone is
interested.

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green
– Runs well, you can run graphics on lowest to have it running
smoothest oreven on medium and high settings and it will still be
playable, and the settings on shadow detail on low or high doesntmuch
matter, I went for the low option, and run it on 1024×768 resolution,
audio was running very well on default settings so i didnt bother
changing anything there. If you use cheats, all work ok, except using
the minigun cheat most times the game crashes on the mininote.

A Once Commercial Game Pack is now released as freeware it can be
downloaded here on this link or in others sites as well –
[url]http://downloads.guru3d.com/Postal-2-Share-The-Pain-MP-Full-Version-free-download-1935.html[/url]

Postal 2 or Postal 2 Share the Pain Multiplayer Edition to Work. (Watch out for version incompatibility
(USA/EU/etc) with standalones and this pack).

Deus Ex – Runs Excellent,
even on the highest Settings and with 1024×768 resolution, though its
probably better to stick with an 600×800 resolution with regards to the
mininote’s small screen, as the text dialogue is hard to read this way,
unless you connect to a bigger external screen.

Delta Force: Land Warrior –
Runs well, low or even on all high settings. However to run the game I
recieved some errors regarding MMX (on the MMX error it says the VIA
chip doesnt support MMX feature – “Error: MMX Compatible Processor not
found”, but thats not true because the VIA chip in 2133s supports MMX,
SSE, SSE-2 and SSE-3) and a swap file error, i just ignore these
messages and keep pressing ok, screen will flicker and such, til I got
to the main menu, I start the game, no worries just wait for it to load
and it will run fine and stable.

Delta Force: Task Force Dagger -
Runs exactly like Land Warrior, same settings, and same errors upon
starting the game,just ignore errors and keep pressing ok to get to main
menu, and start the game.

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down – Runs very badly even on lowest settings, its very choppy.

Operation FlashPoint: Cold War Crisis -
Runs choppy even on low settings in gameplay, though at the menus its
deceivingly smooth,though not as bad as Delta Force: Black Hawk Down.

Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear –
Runs great, fast and smooth, I’ve ran across just one problem, the mouse
pointer disappears only during mission planning menus and team roster
configurations menus, which can be a real pain in the ass, all because
of the disappearing pointer, I havent found a way to fix it, but theres
another way to get by this, go to your windows xp control panel, then go
to your mouse properties then check the box that says “Show location of
pointer when i press the CTRL Key”, ok so whenever u need to know where
the mouse pointer went anytime at all not just in rogue spear, press
the CTRL key, uncheck this option when you want it disabled, apply and
ok it. Its good that the mouse pointer as your reticle doesnt disappear
during the game.

Unreal: Gold Edition – Runs great, if not super smooth and fast, even at the highest Settings, kept it at 1024×768 Resolution.

Icewind Dale II – Runs
really good, tried it on low, medium and even high settings, and works
well with both 800×600 and 1024×768 resolutions, loading time is fast.
If all settings were using the highest, the game very barely gets choppy
at times, though not enough to annoy the gamer at all.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassins – Runs well, though just like playing on a desktop if you try using cheats the game quickly becomes unstable and crashes.

__________________________________________________

NOTES:

*(The games are in no praticular order but i
do try and group them up sequentially if they are , related or of the
same series, ex: Hitman1 and 2)

*(I will update on this post when I can, Since I got a whole bunch of other Games I’d still like to try on the mininote)

*(Do keep in mind that the HP 2133 first of
the mininote models was not made as a kick-ass mini gaming laptop though
so dont expect it to run something like L4D or so, with a VIA C7-M ULV
chip even if it was the 1.6 GHz model)

*However if you like games like L4D you can
play with Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green in 2133 instead,
with acceptable performance).

*(Also during running of all the games
mentioned here, no other un-needed processes and applications were
running to lessen the burden on the 2133, in otherwords the games were
tested 1 at a time without multi-tasking with other applications for
optimal performance of the game/s running on the mininote, this
especially means all types of heavy resource eating apps (but not
limited to) like firefox, IE, Office Apps, Any Multimedia Authoring
Editing Compression & Converter Tools, Limewire/Frostwire or any P2P
App, AV,AD,AS,ToR/proxies/Anonymyzers and Firewalls, even any Skype,
IM’s or chat client/s, any Java heavy Software, etc-etc. disabled and
all background subprocesses of these turned off as well). For instance I
tried, Running just the needed processes and ran Delta Force: LW and it
worked really good, smooth performance, then I tried running it while
firefox and my firewall and AV were on and it ran quite noticeably
choppy.

*(You can make personal copies of your games
in .iso’s and can easily just mount the games and install from a
virtual drive instead, with applications like for example:
MagicISO(commercial non-freeware) and its MagicDisc(freeware) Virtual
Drive offered separately as freeware, or other commercial software like
UltraISO, PowerISO, Winmount, Alcohol 120%, DaemonTools and such kinds
of apps), instead of running it with an external CD/DVD ROM, if ur not
plugged and the ROM draws power from your 2133, the stock battery
definitely wont last long, power failures will not only be annoying for
losing game data, your FileSystem is at risk of corruption as well, dont
rely on chkdsk 100% to fix it whenever it happens.

*Any Games that came with older version of
DirectX, Dont bother installing it, if you have a DirectX thats more up
to date, keep your latest DirectX, in the case of windows xp, the
official latest is DirectX 9, and thats what I use in my winxp 2133 as
well.

*Slowest and lowest Performers I’ve tried so far, are in order of the 5th being the worst:

1.) Star Wars Republic Commando

2.) Operation FlashPoint: Cold War Crisis.

3.) Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

4.) Gothic II

5.) Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Best to avoid numbers (2), (3), (4) & (5).

*I just recently discovered a list of games
at mininoteuser.com wiki at this link –
[url]http://wiki.mininoteuser.com/howto:gamesonthemini[/url], they
listed Gothic II running beautifully, now I can say that it does run and
look good in my HP 2133 but its runs very slow and choppy, the graphics
do render well at the 2133 but the performance is horrible, However I
think they meant the ingame gameplay itself runs great which in my
experience is the total opposite. Though they dont mention any other
details of the mininote they used if it was a 1.0/1.2/1.6 GHz,

or if the cited games were used by one same constant 2133 model or
how much RAM or what model mininote they used, and less details/settings
much about anything else for Gothic II or any other games they listed
in that link, its likely they ran a later mininote model to run better
performance with Gothic II.

*A note on both Delta Force Games (LW &
TFD) if you experience problems with installing the Delta Force Games
mentioned above, on the mininote, try right-clicking on the Setup.exe
(which is a 16 bit installer, well atleast for DF:Land Warrior as i
remember it) icon in the Delta force installation CD, click properties,
check the compatibility run box and pick windows 95 or 98/Me, apply and
then ok it, run the setup again. *** Another way is to copy all files of
the entire Game from the CD to your 2133, and run the main DF
executable file, but that would occupy a bigger amount of HDD space.

*I originally posted this in the
hpminiguide.com forums(in this links Thread :
http://www.hpminiguide.com/forum/general-discussion/510-games-excel-hp-2133-a.html)
but had a bad time fixing editing and updating the information, I since
deleted the original post, rife with errors and with less games and
details, and moved it here, well it be easier for me to keep logging,
updating and maintaining it here instead too.

** The “SWAT 4” pc game, I
couldnt get it to run. Even if the system requirements just about fits,
being – 1.2 GHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB video card, 2 GB free hard
drive, probably work for the 1.6GHz 2133 models.

** All Games I tried on my HP 2133 myself
with specs 1.2GHz, 2GB RAM (DDR2 333MHz) and Microsoft Windows XP
Professional with SP3 and ofcourse the corresponding mininote WIN-XP
drivers. Used an External DVD-ROM for installing from Game CDs, and on
occasion to make .iso copies of my game CDs for virtual drive mounting
instead. The specific model of my mininote is the HP 2133 FH414PA, heres
the link to its official page in HP website:HP 2133 FH414PA

(Just for Fun!) Online Elvish Name Generator and Online Hobbit Name Generator

Originally posted in previous other defunct Blog/s: (http://zeroincrement.wordpress.com)

December 1, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Just for fun! For those Lord of the Rings fans, if you’ve ever
fancied yourself with an elf and/or hobbit name, you can visit these 2
websites, that generate the equivalent of your current or chosen name
into a hobbit or elvish name…

1.) Online Elvish Name Generator
(example: input John Smith in the elvish male name generator has an equivalent in elvish tongue as Findecáno Helyanwë)
(example: input Anne Smith in the elvish female name generator has an equivalent in elvish tongue as Idril Helyanwë)

2.) Online Hobbit Name Generator
(example: input John Smith in the hobbit male name generator has an equivalent in hobbit lingo as Olo Foxburr of Loamsdown)
(example: input Anne Smith in the hobbit female name generator has an equivalent in hobbit lingo as Daisy Foxburr of Loamsdown)

Javascript Web-Browser Tricks (HOW-TO)

Originally posted in previous other defunct Blog/s: (http://zeroincrement.wordpress.com)

December 1, 2007 at 3:54 pm

I’ll be trying to simplify so everyone can pull this off this short little HOW TO…
Ok, this ain’t all too new and theres been lots of videos in youtube
and such websites showing screencasts of some image trick that makes
pictures go swirling around the browser, such as in this youTube Link .

In any case you can just copy and paste the javascript code I’ll post
here on your NAVIGATION TOOLBAR in your webbrowser which is the one
where you put/see your URL. And I wouldnt really call this little
trick/s a hack just some novel trick maybe, but it does look pretty
cool.

Your going to have to have your Javascript ENABLED in your webbrowser of
choice(preferably fully enabled). Now I’ve tried it on several
browsers(such as – FireFox(version 2.0.0.11), Mozilla Seamonkey(version
1.1.7), Flock(version 1.0), Netscape Navigator(version 9.0.0.4),
IE7(version 7.0.5730.11) , OPERA(version 9.24) which works on all, but
like I said the javascript has to be enabled and then it will depend on
what your javascript settings would be even if it was enabled, like if
you tried using javascript code that would resize your windows, but your
browser javascript setting didnt allow it even if javascript was
enabled then you wouldnt have the resizing of the windows happening.

* Oh yes, and one more thingJavaandjavascript are 2 different things. Despite some screencasts in youTube saying its Java sometimes, this little trick uses “javascript and not Java”.

* Other than javascript being enabled and its settings fully
configured to use the said little tricks, you still get varying results
at different webpages, like try comparing the swirling effects of it in
flickr(flickr.com) and using Microsofts LIVE search(live.com) on images.

1.) Swirling IMAGES in the browser (script): (just copy and paste code to your browser navigation toolbar, and pls. omit the lines.)
Best to try this on a page with lots of images, try flickr.com or something.
Example:

3.) Browser Edit Current Website (Edit the current website in your browser, script):
(just copy and paste code to your browser navigation toolbar, and pls
omit. the lines.) *This trick just temporarily lets you edit and play
around the current website in your browser, it doesn’t truly do anything
to the website, so once you refresh or something all changes will not
stay as you changed it.

Originally I was just going to post up the MAC OS X versions 10.4 and 10.5 ways to flush the dns cache, since i rarely use Macs, I usually forget them dns commands for the mac os x. But i thought it may come in handy to other people
that check this page and have the other systems dns cache flush commands
as well. All such commands to be issued at command line.

in Microsoft Windows XP:

ipconfig /flushdns

in GNU/Linux:

For desktop systems that use nscd, you can restart the nscd daemon to
flush the dns cache in Linux, depending on different Distribution
systems the path to the nscd file could differ, so just locate the nscd
path and then restart it, some common paths are in these commands below:

service nscd restart or /sbin/service nscd restart or /etc/init.d/nscd restart

Theres also the dnsmasq dns cache for linux, then use command below instead:

/etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

And BIND server dns cache use the command below instead:

/etc/init.d/named restart
(*Obviously one must have root or sudo priviledges to issue such commands)

in Solaris 10 UNIX:

for SOLARIS one must locate the nscd then issue a kill command with the
NSCD daemon’s PID, example:

pkill <PID> or kill <PID> and restart the nscd daemon again with: /usr/sbin/nscd